G. L. Vandenburg 12 min read

Marshaling New York's biggest parade ever, the harried Mr. Cruthers rounds a corner and freezes: before him stand a hundred and fifty ants, each at least six feet tall.

G. L. Vandenburg's 1959 story spins genial first-contact comedy from an alien contingent crashing a city parade. Fun, absurd golden-age SF. Read it for a delightful romp where giant extraterrestrial ants turn a grand civic spectacle into glorious chaos.

In its time

Published in 1959, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

12 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).